


like parts of the same, beautiful, puzzle.

by chickadee



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-23
Updated: 2011-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickadee/pseuds/chickadee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They spend a lot of time side-stepping what they should be saying instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like parts of the same, beautiful, puzzle.

"We should get a kitten," Johanna says one night. She's laying upside down on their gray corduroy couch, with her knees up and over the part where most _normal_ people put their heads.

"No we shouldn't," Gale responds, without even looking up from his notes of General Adrian's lecture that morning.

"Or a baby." That gets his attention.

"I'm sorry. A _what?_ "

"A baby."

"A _human_ baby?"

"Sure."

"Ok, ok. Get the goddamn kitten."

Johanna grins upside down like the Cheshire Cat. Gale's not the only one who can set a trap.

"You won't be sorry."

"I already am, Jo."

“Come on, Gale.”

“I _said_ you could get one.”

“Yes, but I want _you_ to want one,” Johanna explains. “I don’t want him to think he came into this world unloved by half his family.”

“Oh, it’s a him now, is it?”

“Of course. He is striped and has a pink nose and his name is Sebastian.”

“You’re a nut, Jo.” At one time, that would have hurt. But Johanna’s come to a quiet agreement with her mental instability.

“And you love me.”

“And I love you,” Gale parrots. He pushes his glasses up his nose and re-focuses on the paper in front of him.

 _I love you._ These are the the easy things to say. _I Love You, I Need You, Stay, Come, Don’t Go, Harder, Please, Again._ These are easy. Slipping right off the tongue and into the night where they float up and up, like balloons until you have to squint to see their shapes against the light of the moon.

Mostly, they go around not saying a lot of things. The important things.

Gale never makes her explain why she doesn’t leave the apartment on days that it rains. Which seems like every day now. Or the way he found her trembling in the shower after the water had gone cold. Eyes wide like she was seeing ghosts.

And Johanna doesn’t mention the answering machine and its beeping light. The way Beetee, ever persistent, clears his throat and asks Gale to call him. Over and over again. And she definitely does not mention the violent way Gale punches the delete button. Zapping that cold, technological voice into oblivion.

They don’t talk about their fears, outside of frogs (inexplicably, Gale) and the human brain (obviously, Jo). They certainly don’t talk about guilt, at least not outside of apologizing for drinking the last of the milk (Jo) or shaving over the sink and leaving clippings all over (Gale).

They don’t talk about Johanna’s Games. Or After.

They don’t talk about Gale’s father. Or his mother, for that matter. Or his time in the mines.

And they don’t talk about _her_. They don’t talk about the way they both loved her, in one way or another. The way they miss her. They don’t talk about what could have been.

And that’s ok. It must be ok. Because at least they’re in it together. And talking’s overrated when you can just look at each other and _know_. Can brush the hair out of each other’s eyes. Can smile and take away the rain. Can laugh and put a patch over that cracked place where guilt creeps in.

And yes, they mostly take the easy way. But sometimes they sit silently, beside each other on their gray corduroy couch and let go of the broken pieces of their lives they’ve clutched to their chests for so long, passing them back and forth until they fit together like parts of the same, beautiful, puzzle.


End file.
